San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Movies: Billie Holiday’s godson, Bevan Dufty, says Oscar-nominated film gets story right
“The United States vs. Billie Holiday” is a biopic that feels like it’s on a mission to correct the record about the famed jazz singer’s life — and her death. The film’s story is based on a chapter in the 2015 book “Chasing the Scream: The First and Last Days of the War on Drugs” by Johann Hari, which highlights the role of government agencies in persecuting the outspoken singer, played by Andra Day, an Oscar nominee for her performance.
For a member of Holiday’s extended family, it’s a portrayal that feels personal and long overdue.
“Lee Daniels’ film changes history,” says Holiday’s godson Bevan Dufty, his voice rising with emotion. ”Going forward forever, fans of Billie Holiday will know that she didn’t die from her addiction. She died because her government murdered her.”
The film centers Holiday’s famous antilynching song “Strange Fruit” at the heart of the government’s aggression against the singer, as well as her civil rights advocacy. Her struggle with heroin addiction made her an easy target, and she was arrested multiple times on drugrelated charges (including once in San Francisco).
The record shows that there was a pattern of harassment against Holiday dating back to the 1930s, including situating an informant in Holiday’s circle, planting drugs on the singer and arresting her while she was hospitalized for cirrhosis in her final days. The book and film argue that the driver of this persecution was primarily the Federal Bureau of Narcotics under the order of commissioner Harry J. Anslinger, played by Garrett Hedlund. On July 17, 1959, Holiday was handcuffed in her hospital bed, where she died at age 44.
Holiday’s death when Dufty was just 4½ years old became a defining moment in his family, says the BART director and former member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors. Dufty’s father, William, was a journalist and friend of Holiday’s as well as the coauthor of her memoir, “Lady Sings the Blues.”
Dufty’s mother, Maely, was a Jewish Czech immigrant who lost her family in World War II and had a strong bond with Holiday — perhaps one informed by their shared experiences of prejudice.
Both Duftys were wellknown in the New York jazz world at the time, with Mae
ly managing musician Charlie Parker for a period. Dufty says the trauma around Holiday’s death was a factor in his parents’ divorce: Maely would go on to work with addicts in Harlem and for civil rights causes. William Dufty was absent from his son’s life until Bevan’s adulthood: He later wrote the bestselling nutrition book “Sugar Blues” and married actor Gloria Swanson.
Still, decades later, like dropping a needle on vinyl, Dufty can summon the din of his parents’ 93rd Street apartment and Holiday’s legendary voice cooing to him. “They would put me to bed, and then I’d go and I’d sneak under the big dining room table,” Dufty says. “There’s a Verve box set, and I think on the eighth CD is a jam session in our apartment, and I’m wearing red underwear. Holiday is making
fun of my red drawers. And then she sings ‘My Yiddishe Momme’ because my mom and I are Jewish.”
Dufty remembers things like the way his godmother could stretch words like “sugar” and the later rasp of that glorious, battleworn vocal instrument. Holiday often sang to him, a lullaby experience that no doubt set impossibly high standards.
“Coming from her it was like coming from God,” Dufty says. “It was a voice that you heard nowhere else.” When Dufty was born, Holiday was a constant presence in his family’s household. Although she never had children of her own, Dufty says Holiday was naturally warm and a second maternal figure to him. He was always trying to get a few extra minutes with his godmother, or one more song, before bedtime.
In 1972, “Lady Sings the Blues” was made into a film starring Diana Ross. While the book is colorfully, but inaccurately told, the hit movie took more significant liberties with the facts of Holiday’s life, especially in how it portrayed husband Louis McKay.
“‘Lady Sings the Blues’ as a fictional film was fine,” Dufty says. “But the notion that Louis McKay, who my mother named ‘Decay,’ was (sympathetic) Billy Dee Williams was just ridiculous.”
The new film is more accurate in its presentation of Holiday’s relationships, including with women like actress Tallulah Bankhead. It also centers Holiday’s addiction and legal troubles in the larger context of institutional violence against Black Americans. He calls Day’s performance “transformative; she inhabits Holiday.”
While neither Holiday’s music nor her story have ever really gone away in culture (Dufty also praised Audra McDonald’s performance as Holiday in “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”) Daniels’ film feels timely following the societal reckonings of Black Lives Matter.
“Holiday is such a transformative figure,” Dufty says. “As we’ve fought to save American democracy this past year, we’ve relied on the indomitable spirit of Black women. And it’s important to me that Billie Holiday be seen in that context. Not simply that she was a strong Black woman, but that she was one of the earliest catalysts of the modern civil rights movement through ‘Strange Fruit.’ ”